Wrath of the Chief

In Astersea, the eldest grandson of a retired soldier named Victor Sterling is beaten so badly by Tuna Hart, a son of one of the city's powerful families, that he ends up in intensive care. The Hart family treats it as a billing matter. They offer money, they lean on their connections to have the case closed, and they talk down to the shabby old man who has come to the hospital, assuming there is nothing behind him. Victor sits with that for a while, then takes out a military encrypted phone he has not used in years and makes one call. The city's security director puts the whole area under a Level One Alert. Armed units seal the hospital within minutes and, once inside, salute Victor. Command in the southern zone activates its own emergency plans, and the money and influence the Hart family has spent decades stacking up begins to come apart over a single night, with the people who thought a case could be bought being handled one by one.